The present invention relates to electronic messaging and, more particularly, to a technique for identifying the xe2x80x9ccommunication statusxe2x80x9d (e.g., xe2x80x9clogged onxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cvoice phone idle/busyxe2x80x9d, etc.) of a message sender at the time the receiver of the message opens the electronic message.
Electronic messaging (including e-mail and voice mail) has recently experienced a surge in popularity and is now commonly employed by both business people and consumers for a wide variety of tasks. Since electronic messaging systems automate the delivery and storage of information, they simplify the task of communication and of keeping track of the communications. Additionally, as the popularity of electronic messaging has grown, so has the number of messages sent and received by its users. The number of messages is expected to increase even more in the future. Moreover, messaging systems have promoted free-form communications by its users. Although the message headers may be somewhat standardized and structured, the body of messages has remained unstructured, left entirely up to the sender of the message.
The recipient of the electronic message is frequently faced with a choice of media to use to respond to the message (if, indeed, there is a need to response to the received message). Oftentimes, the recipient responds by email simply by default if the original message was received by email. In a similar manner, if the electronic message was received in the form of voice mail, a voice call is used to respond. Although these responses may be adequate in most circumstances, there may be occasions where another media choice would be more expedient in communicating between the sender and the recipient.
The need remaining in the prior art is addressed by the present invention, which relates to electronic messaging and, more particularly, to a technique for identifying the xe2x80x9ccommunication statusxe2x80x9d (e.g., xe2x80x9clogged onxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cvoice phone idle/busyxe2x80x9d, etc.) of a message sender at the time the recipient of the message opens the electronic message.
In accordance with the present invention, and in the context of e-mail, a received e-mail message will have embedded within it a xe2x80x9cuser activity registryxe2x80x9d query that will be immediately and automatically launched when the recipient opens the e-mail (as a significant distinction, prior art arrangements require an extra step and opening another window to determine the status of the sending party). The query, which includes the identity of the sending party, will access the registry and determine if the sender is currently xe2x80x9clogged inxe2x80x9d to the network, currently involved in a voice call, cell phone xe2x80x9cidlexe2x80x9d, etc. In general, the user activity registry will include current status information regarding the various communication systems used by the sender. This information will be sent back to the recipient of the email and can then be used by the recipient to choose the best media to use to respond to the email (if a response is desired).
An advantage of the present invention is that the embedded registry status query is compatible for use with virtually any conventional email client, as along as the email client is capable of rendering HTML (or any other markup language which may be used). In today""s environment, therefore, virtually every commercially available email client may incorporate the use of the inventive status registry. In contrast, prior art arrangements for determining the status of other network users required each user to use the same, specially modified, email client.
When used with a voice mail system, the response may be configured using n interactive voice response (IVR) system to return an audible message to the recipient, who can then use DTMF tones or an automatic speech recognition system to configure a reply.
It is an aspect of the present invention that the query will remain embedded within the email and automatically re-launched each time the message is opened, so that updated information regarding the communication status of the sender will be obtained each time the message is read.
Other and further aspects and embodiments of the present invention will become apparent during the course of the following discussion and by reference to the accompanying drawings.